So many "believers" just have a surface-level understanding of what it means to "hold a belief." Statements of belief are often nothing more than a conditioned response. It's just a way to please other people when they ask such "rhetorical" questions as:

"do you believe in God?"
Christianese to English translation:
"Are you willing to tell me the thing that I want to hear, so I won't have to feel sorry for you?"

"have you accepted Jesus as your Savior?"
Christianese to English translation:
"Please agree with my life choices. I need constant validation so I won't look bad in front of my family and peers."

"Are you a Christian(, like me)?"
Christianese to English translation:
"My supernatural beliefs about life's most unanswerable questions are THE correct ones, because I'm required to feel correct in order to get the ultimate reward of not being tortured for eternity. It's okay if your false beliefs differ from mine in a major way, as long as you're still willing to use the same word that I use so that I won't have to feel any less correct. If I feel like I can personally relate to your beliefs in some way, then I will validate them, thus validating myself. If your beliefs are too weird or scary, then I will pray for you, thus validating myself. I could really use the extra brownie points from God right about now, since I masturbated this morning."

(04-07-2016 10:43 AM)Silly Deity Wrote: So I was minding my own business in a shopping centre. My wife had disappeared into a store about half an hour earlier and being the sort of bloke that I am (I hate shopping) I had wandered off and was observing the comings and goings of the mass of humanity in a medium sized English town centre.

I spotted a small group of young people animatedly chatting to each other some way off. They looked like they might be mormons given that the lads were wearing white shirts and ties and they had name-badges.

Sure as eggs is eggs, as soon as the group broke up a couple made a bee-line in my direction.

"Here we go......" I groaned. I really didn't want to waste 10 minutes of my life hearing about how wonderful life would be for me in the LDS.

Long story short..........after asking me if I knew that the love of Jebus could make all things possible and then finding out that I was an atheist I ended up asking them why they were Mormons and got the not unexpected answer that it was because they had been raised Mormon.

So I then pointed out that people invariably believe in the God their parents tell them to believe in and that this is influenced by the country or region they're brought up in. I then asked that if they were born in Saudi Arabia what religion they would be.

That puzzled them.............then one of them said he'd probably be an atheist. Not a muslim. No........he actually said he'd be an atheist.

The mental somersaults that some people will do when faced with reason and logic that conflicts with belief is mighty strange.

I heard an anecdote on a podcast about Christians complaining that a lot of Mormons; when they deconvert, tend to reject all religions and become atheists.

If you are in a religion that emphasizes how all other religions are corrupted, then I could see why that would happen.

I can only give my initial impression that fundamentalist branches would tend to have higher deconversion rates than the less radical branches because you have to believe more absurdities to sustain it rather than wave the cognitive dissonance away with treating your religious book as metaphorical.

I guess I fit that stereotype. Once was Mormon now I reject all religions. I've heard of some mormons staying christian but it does seem like a lot reject all organised religions and become part of the non's.

Most of the Mormon missionaries are guys but I came across two Mormon girls who were going door to door. They were dressed in skirts, sweaters and jackets because it was cold. I'm not very good at face to face confrontation because my brain freezes up with anger and I can't get the words out. Anyway, they came to the door holding their book of mormon and I just said "no thank you" and shut the door. So there are girl missionaries too.

(04-07-2016 10:43 AM)Silly Deity Wrote: So I was minding my own business in a shopping centre. My wife had disappeared into a store about half an hour earlier and being the sort of bloke that I am (I hate shopping) I had wandered off and was observing the comings and goings of the mass of humanity in a medium sized English town centre.

I spotted a small group of young people animatedly chatting to each other some way off. They looked like they might be mormons given that the lads were wearing white shirts and ties and they had name-badges.

Sure as eggs is eggs, as soon as the group broke up a couple made a bee-line in my direction.

"Here we go......" I groaned. I really didn't want to waste 10 minutes of my life hearing about how wonderful life would be for me in the LDS.

Long story short..........after asking me if I knew that the love of Jebus could make all things possible and then finding out that I was an atheist I ended up asking them why they were Mormons and got the not unexpected answer that it was because they had been raised Mormon.

So I then pointed out that people invariably believe in the God their parents tell them to believe in and that this is influenced by the country or region they're brought up in. I then asked that if they were born in Saudi Arabia what religion they would be.

That puzzled them.............then one of them said he'd probably be an atheist. Not a muslim. No........he actually said he'd be an atheist.

The mental somersaults that some people will do when faced with reason and logic that conflicts with belief is mighty strange.

Once two smoking hot Mormon ladies came to my house. Right away I wanted to have an encounter with them.

Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. - Ayn Rand.

Don't sacrifice for me, live for yourself! - Me

The only alternative to Objectivism is some form of Subjectivism. - Dawson Bethrick